Last Chain on Billie (non-fiction)

How One Extraordinary Elephant Escaped the Big Top by Carol Bradley - Left in the wild, Billie the elephant would have spent her life surrounded by her family, free to wander the jungles of Asia. Instead, she was captured as a baby and shipped to America where she arrived in the mid-1950s, long before circus and zoo-goers worried about animal living conditions. For twenty-three years she dazzled audiences, but she lived a life of neglect and abuse. As years passed, Billie rebelled.More Info

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When she attacked and injured her trainer, a federal inspector ordered her taken off the road. For a decade she languished in a dusty barn. Finally, fate intervened. The U.S. Department of Agriculture removed Billie and fifteen other elephants as part of the largest elephant rescue in American history. Billie wound up at The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee in 2006, but she thundered with anxiety in her new environment and refused to let anyone remove a chain still clamped around her leg.

Last Chain on Billie charts the growing movement to rescue performing elephants from lives of misery, and tells the story of how one emotionally damaged elephant overcame her past and learned to trust humans again.

· Published by St. Martin's Press

· 336 pages

See video of Billie's chain being removed at The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee.

The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee is a 501(C)(3) Nonprofit Corporation EIN: 62-1587327. Licensed by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA).

With your support, The Elephant Sanctuary:

Provides captive elephants with individualized care, the companionship of a herd, and the opportunity to live out their lives in a safe haven dedicated to their wellbeing;

Raises public awareness of the complex needs of elephants in captivity, and the crisis facing elephants in the wild.

The Elephant Sanctuary has set aside unrestricted financial operational reserves of five times its budgeted expenses to ensure the lifetime care and safe haven for an undetermined number of elephants. Elephants have an expected lifespan of 50-70 years and The Sanctuary is committed to providing food, shelter, veterinary care, medicine, caregivers, property maintenance and security. Along with the public’s continuing support, these funds are needed to provide for the elephants currently in our care and those to come.

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